


I Won't Say Goodbye

by siriuslydraco



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season Eight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 06:42:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslydraco/pseuds/siriuslydraco
Summary: "I won't say goodbye" she shakes her head of red hair, and Jon's mouth twitches ever so slightly. So stubborn, he thinks, always so stubborn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the entire jonsa fam](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+entire+jonsa+fam).



> the ending saddened me but then the more I thought about it the more I realised how much good fanfiction can come from it and I've been reading so many today and they're all so brilliant. I like to imagine that Jon would come back to Sansa and to his home so here is my (very rushed) contribution to the fanfic pool. Also I don't think Arya should have left Gendry so I added in what I wished had of happened. Hope you enjoy it!!

_I will not step foot in Kings Landing while Cersei Lannister is queen._ The words she had spoken so long ago in a frenzied panic of fear whispers to her from the back of her mind, and the Lady of Winterfell can not help but think there had been a ring of prophecy to them as she walks the golden flagstones of the capitol. The golden haired Lannister was dead, buried beneath the Red Keep along with her gallant brother. Sansa can not help but detest him for causing so much heartache to her sworn shield. But a part of her understands the desire he must of had to die alongside his sister. _The things we do for love_ , Bran had once said, and although she had comforted Brienne for nights as she wept for her lost love who had rode South, Sansa _understands_. 

If she had no other choice she would gladly have chosen to die beneath crumbling stone with _her_ love. She would have gladly laid in _his_ arms, trembling and shaking as she awaited death, only to become a tangled mess of red hair and black curls beneath the desolation. But she was not dead however. The Lion Queen had been pulled from the destruction along with Ser Jaime, and while Tyrion accompanied their corpses home to Casterly Rock, Sansa Stark walked free. 

Kings Landing was destroyed, and despite the fact it had been almost a week since the Targaryen Queen had laid it to waste Sansa could still feel the heat of the dragons fire ripple through the air. People had fled the capitol- their homes and families destroyed- and those who were dead were still being discovered amongst the rubble. With each body that was buried in a large pit outside the city, Sansa felt less and less sorry for the demise of the Dragon Queen. Yes she had not liked Daenerys Targaryen the moment she had laid eyes on her yet she had never wished her dead. Sansa could not wish that on anyone. But _this_ , this horror she had reigned down was unimaginable. Her death by Jon's hand had been deserved. 

Perhaps all Targaryens were mad, she thought but then she stopped. No. Not _all_. 

She stood at the window of her rooms, feeling that unmerciful heat stagger across her face and create more freckles along her nose and cheeks. She had hated being back in the capitol and when she had stepped from her horse she had wobbled and had felt faint until Lady Brienne had held her up. _I can't do it_ , she had muttered to her protector as her heart hammered against her chest. This city, this hell had been where her father had been executed, where she had been humiliated and tormented. But she continued on for _him_. 

 _For Jon._ Everything was always for Jon. 

He stood now by the piers edge, readying the boat for his departure while Ser Davos helped him, and Sansa stood high at her window as she looked down at him. She could see the dark cloaks of the Nights Watch, of the men who had come to take him away and she swallowed thickly- her eyes dropping to the windowsill. He was a Queenslayer now, and had been banished on the wishes of Daenerys Targaryens supporters. Sansa could not believe after everything she had done to this city that she would still have supporters, but nevertheless their wish had been granted, and now Jon Snow was to leave her yet again. 

Perhaps this was the way it was supposed to be for them. Always saying goodbye and skirting around the possibilities that could bloom if given the chance. But there was always that small voice in her mind that told her it could never be. _Jon loved his Dragon Queen,_ it would sneer, _he doesn't love you, you stupid little girl._

"He's leaving soon, you know" her sisters voice materialised out of thin air but Sansa had become so accustomed to Arya's gift of silence that she didn't even flinch. Or perhaps it was because she was so lost in thought of Jon that made her oblivious to her sisters entry. 

"I know" Sansa replies- voice full of sadness and a bitter regret. Arya stalks towards her as she turns to look at her, and those large eyes are ever intrusive as they bore into Sansa's. 

"You should go and say goodbye" 

Sansa huffs indignantly and turns back towards the window. Outside, the city is becoming an inky shadow in the horizon as the sun starts to set, and Sansa looks to the indigo sky she can see settle itself over the capitol instead of her sister. She can still feel those Stark eyes on her. Eyes so much like _his_. 

"I am tired of saying goodbye to Jon Snow. I won't say goodbye this time" Sansa clenches her jaw tight and her eyes too- shutting the sky out and replacing it with blackness. 

"You may never see him again, Sansa" Arya steps closer to her but Sansa whirls away from her sister and the window. She begins tidying up the desk that sits in the room- her hands shaking as she piles up blank parchment and dusty books. 

"Sansa" Arya tries again but the Lady of Winterfell steps forward and lets ice drip in her words. 

"Do _not_ say that" Sansa grinds her teeth as she closes her eyes- her palms resting on the desk "I _will_ see him again! I _will_. As soon as I am in the North I will use whatever power I have to pardon him. Our brother is King, surely Bran can do something. This is not a goodbye" 

"Sansa, I think Jon _wants_ to leave. I don't think he plans on coming back" Arya's words hit her hard and for a moment Sansa can imagine how Cersei and Ser Jaime felt as they had been crushed by thousands of bricks. Heavy and breathless. 

That evil and condescending voice inside her head had sneered the same kind of words to her all day. That voice had told her that Jon didn't love her, that she wasn't enough for him to stay. She was just a broken girl. Why would he stay with her? Why would he love her like he'd loved his wildling girl or his foreign queen? Of course the true wildness of the North was more appealing to him than staying in Winterfell with its stone faced Lady. 

She sinks into the chair beside her and lets her head fall into her hands for a moment. She does not care if she looks ridiculous to Arya, her emotions are too strong to hide. 

"We've won but I'm losing everything" Sansa whispers, feeling a rush of traitor tears stream from her Tully eyes and down her face "Bran is King and will stay here, Brienne will probably stay in the capitol now and join the Kingsguard and you......you're leaving too, I assume?" 

"Storms End. That's where I'm heading" her sister tells her, and as Sansa lifts her teary eyes to Arya's face she can see the ghost of a smile play around her mouth. Despite her heartache Sansa can not help but feel elated at the thought of Arya joining Gendry. 

"I thought you said all that Lady business wasn't for you?" Sansa questions but Arya is serious and straight as she answers. 

"No, but Gendry is" despite her stoic posture her voice becomes soft when she says his name, and in it Sansa picks up on a fondness she herself so often emulates while talking of Jon "he asked me to marry him, you know?" 

"Marry him?" Sansa gasps as Arya takes the chair across from her sister, soundlessly falling into it. 

"I refused, obviously. I'm not ready for that, but I love him and I want to be with him. Who knows I might just acquire the taste for being a Lady" she jokes and Sansa smiles, genuinely. Her sister will be away in the Baratheons home but she won't be too far away. Perhaps Sansa can visit when she becomes too lonely. 

"I'm happy for you. Truly" Sansa tells her as she reaches out a hand and leaves it atop her sisters small one "after everything you've been through, after everything you've done for Westeros you truly deserve happiness" 

"I wish you were happy" Arya gives her sisters hand a squeeze "I wish things had been different" 

"So do I" 

"Make peace with Jon, sister" Arya's hand slips from Sansa's as she stands, those doe eyes full of something that undresses Sansa's soul and she can't help but wonder if her sleuthing sibling knows the true reason behind the Lady of Winterfell's heartache "you'll regret it if you don't" 

"I do not think Jon can forgive me. I don't think he can see that everything I did was for him" Sansa sinks further into her chair, feeling that same tug in her heart when she thinks of how she had betrayed her promise to Jon to never tell a soul of his true parentage. She had told Tyrion in an attempt to avoid a catastrophe ruling the Seven Kingdoms. But Daenerys had burned Kings Landing almost to the ground, and Jon was now being sent away. 

Her sister stops at the door then, one hand on the handle as she turns to face her sister. 

"Perhaps everything he did was for you" she tells her, and then before Sansa can even offer an answer she is gone. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The sky is obsidian black with only the bare twinkling of stars lighting it, and Sansa Stark shivers at the thought that somewhere the large dragon roams above them- his mothers dead body clutched in his hold. She waits beneath one of the many arches that still remain standing in the city, her back against the golden stone and her hands trembling by her sides. She tries to listen to the soft lapping of the water against the piers edge and the dull clack of the wooden boat as it hits off the brick but she can not seem to focus. Not when her heart is beating so deafeningly in her chest. 

She had tried so hard to stay away, but while she has fashioned herself as strong willed these past few years as the Lady of Winterfell, she has to admit that her heart is weak when it comes to Jon Snow. It falters and fights with any strength she has ever mustered within herself and settles to become a thumping, quivering mess inside of her. How she both loves and hates him for it. 

He has spent the evening with Arya and Bran, dining with them in Bran's new chambers and laughing and conversing with them for hours. Sansa could hear them from where she forlornly sat in her rooms, she had left the door open so she could hear his deep timbre echo down the hallways but she could not bring herself to see him. Or say goodbye. 

But her love for him had won in the end, and now here she waits for him. Perhaps she will spend the rest of her life waiting for him. She had become rather good at pining for him. All chapters in books came to an end eventually, and her and Jon's chapter seemed to be ending before it had even begun. Her heart lurches in her chest and she shuts her eyes tightly as she grabs the wall- the world seeming to tilt ever so slightly. 

"Sansa?" she hears the voice- deep and Northern- and her eyes snap open. Jon Snow stands before her, one foot still on the winding stone staircase at the bottom of the archway and the other resting flat on the ground. He has stopped mid step to gaze at her and those dark eyes of Stark grey look into hers of Tully blue. She shuffles where she stands and tries to regain some of her trademark elegant posture but she fails when she sways on her feet. 

He looks so frail, she thinks, and so childlike. She had been so used to seeing his hair tied back, and that stern look of hardship that had always lined his handsome face with harsh maturity, had reminded her of her father. But now he stands in front of her with those black curls around his face and he stands over her- slumped and broken. She swallows harshly as she imagines he looks this grieved over _her_. _Daenerys Targaryen_. 

"Jon" is all she is able to stutter out- all ladylike mannerisms of stoniness abandoned. She is glad it is dark so that he can not see how her eyes are welling up with unshed tears. She will not cry in front of him, she vows, she will be her mother in this moment. She can weep when he is long away. 

"You weren't at dinner" he states as he walks towards her, his form a dark mass of curls and fur against the backdrop of sky "I went to your chambers but you were not there. I left since I gathered you had not meant to see me" 

He doesn't look at her when he speaks but makes it his business to fiddle with his sleeve. Sansa stands there beneath the arch and despite the gloomy circumstances her heart soars at the thought that he had looked for her before he left. Perhaps he could not bare parting from her without one last look either. 

"I didn't think you would want to see _me_ " her voice is so small and frail that the rippling waves that splash down near the shore seem to drown out her words, but Jon can hear her. She's sure of that fact when his breath hitches painfully. 

"Sansa -" 

"Jon, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for betraying the promise I made you. For telling Tyrion" she interrupts him frantically, her elegant hands trembling by her side "I thought it would all result in a different outcome" 

"You had the Seven Kingdoms best interests in mind" Jon moves closer to her- close enough that his breath stirs the copper hairs around her face "I can't blame you for that. You saw what she was before any of us realised"

"I wish things could have been different" Sansa whispers to him, feeling her heart tremor at the way his body heat is cloaking her. She wishes things had been very different. She wishes she'd never met Prince Joffrey or wished to be his wife. She wished she had of stayed in Winterfell and Jon too, and that none of the Starks had ever left the North. She wishes Daenerys had stayed in Pentos or Meeren or wherever it was she had set sail from. She wished to change it all, but the present is horrible and real and is standing right before her. 

"I wish for that too" Jon replies and Sansa is sure when she breathes in she can feel the sharp shards of ice puncture her heart. He thinks of _her_ , she concludes, he wishes he could be with _her_. 

"I don't wish to part without making peace, Jon" it's hard to say his name "I would like for you to forgive me" 

"Forgive you?" Jon asks quizzically, those deep warm eyes boring into her face "For what, sweet girl? I already know why you did it. You were protecting the realm, our family and the North. I thought I was doing the same thing but I went about it all wrong. You don't need my forgiveness. There's nothing to forgive" 

_Can you forgive me? **There's nothing to forgive.** Forgive me. **Alright, I forgive you.**_

The words hover around them now like ghosts- haunting them where they stand and as Sansa looks into Jon's eyes she knows he too is thinking back to when they had found one another again in the snow of Castle Black. His breathing is deep while Sansa's is sharp and erratic and her eyes follow the way his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. He is half shadowed in the heavy darkness of the arch and the other half of him is lit by the glowing moon that bounces off the nearby water- and he is _beautiful_. Handsome and brooding, and just like the Prince she had always dreamt of. 

"Do you have to leave?" Sansa all but whispers to him and Jon's eyes close for a moment as he breathes deeply. 

"Aye, I must" he tells her after a minute and when he opens his eyes again they are hardened by something that lurks within him. It is a determined look of a man who has already condemned himself to a life he does not want but thinks he deserves. 

"The North is free now, Jon. When I ride back there I will exert any power I have to bestow a pardon" she becomes almost frantic when he looks away from her, his body now leaning away from her "you won't have to leave for the Wall. You can stay in Winterfell with your people. _With me_ "

He flinches a little when her cold hands takes his face but the weak part of him nuzzles into her touch- his eyes finding her beautiful face in the dark. Gods was she beautiful, and how he loved her. Mother above he _loved_ her. But how could he allow himself to let her know? How could he go back to the North beside its Queen after all that he had let the North suffer? 

"I can't, Sansa" 

Unadulterated hurt flickers across her face and her hands slowly drop away from him to fall limply at her sides. She's sure he can almost hear her heart shatter inside of her. Naivety and that small hopeful part of her had perhaps believed he would fall into her arms and accept her offer to stay within the confines of Winterfell. But he stands there before her like the stone carving of Lord Eddard Stark that rests in the crypts. 

"Jon! Your exile is pointless!" Sansa fumes at him, her voice a little louder than it had been before "Don't hide yourself away from your family" 

"I'm a Queenslayer now!" Jon turns to her and Sansa backs against the wall before him "I murdered my own blood! How do you think the Northern lords will react to that? I'll be mistrusted the rest of my life for this! I'll be just like Jaime Lannister and have people whispering behind my back each time I turn around" 

"So you truly wish to exile yourself because of her? Because of the weight of the guilt on your soul for murdering that monster? You leave me alone because of her, _again_!" Sansa can feel the tears cloud her eyes and somehow there is no shame in crying before him. _I won't cry in front of him_ , she had promised herself, but her promise had been futile in the end. 

This time it is his turn to cradle her face in his hands, and he can feel the hot tears against her cheeks as they spill from her eyes. Her hair smells of lavender and lemon as he buries his face in the crown of her head and some absurd part of him wishes he could bring a lock of the fiery tendrils with him to the wall. But he must settle on his memory of her copper locks to sustain him. She moulds into him as she cries and Jon knows she is too broken to ever fully understand why he must leave. He can not bear to part with her, but he will never deserve hers or the North's love. He had brought a tyrant into its walls and had let the shadow of a dragon roam over her home. Northern men had died fighting beside this Targaryen Queen and for what? She had gone mad and Jon had killed her for it. Jon had lead men to war thinking they were making the world a better place, but it had ended in ruins. 

"I left for the wall once because I didn't know my true place in this world, and now I leave for it again for the same reason. I must learn who I am, and I must heal alone" he tells her and he can feel her fingers knot in the front of his cloak, pulling him closer to her. His words only partly ring with truth, for he had hidden the whole truth from her. The truth where he had laid with the Dragon Queen to manipulate her, the truth where he had let himself be coddled into the embrace of a dragon to save the wolves. How different he thought it would have ended. But alas, here they stand beneath the archway of a ruined city. 

"Your place is with me" her eyes are crystalline pools of tears and his heart breaks inside of him at the sight of her. She reaches a shaky hand to his face and lets her fingers trace along the sharp outline of stubble on his jaw, and when her thumb brushes over his lips he trembles before her. 

"Aye, sweet girl, my place is with you. Perhaps in a kinder world we could've stayed side by side. But you'll never be far from me" as he speaks he cradles her small hand and places it over his beating heart. It feels hollow inside of him but under her touch it sings gloriously. She shakes a little and blinks the tears from her eyes as he brings that same hand to his mouth and kisses it. 

She doesn't speak again and Jon knows she is not the type of woman to beg. No, she will not grovel for Jon Snow no matter how much she wishes for him to stay. She has cried and pleaded with him to stay but he will not, and Sansa Stark understands that she perhaps is not enough to persuade him. He lets her hand go and he stands away from her- a sudden coldness overcoming her. 

"Goodbye, Sansa" his voice is beautifully Northern- like a wolf- and even now she delights that there is nothing of a dragon in him. She just stares at him and takes him in, her mind storing away his memory for when she'll need to resurrect it. 

"I won't say goodbye" she shakes her head of red hair, and Jon's mouth twitches ever so slightly. So stubborn, he thinks, always so stubborn. His hand wraps around the back of her neck and before he can stop himself he is kissing her forehead, his plump lips gently planting themselves on her skin. She looks up at him when he pulls away and she is reminded of another time he had kissed her this way. On the top of Winterfell- surrounded by stone and snow and he looks at her lips the way he had looked at them then. 

Perhaps he does share something of the desire that has deeply rooted itself in her, but he doesn't act on it. It is better this way, she tries to convince herself, for she could never let him go if he were to kiss her like a lover. But he pulls away from her yet again and this time he takes a few steps away from her. She follows his every move with her eyes but remains rooted to the spot as she looks at him back away. 

He doesn't say anything else to her. He just looks at her once more- longingly and lovingly. The last look. And then he turns away from her- becoming a dark shape in the distant night. It's not long before she hears voices and the sound of men clambering onto the small boat that had been tied to the dock. The Lady of Winterfell stays hidden in shadow under the archway but she never lets her eyes waver from the distance. 

She watches him as he rides away in the small wooden boat towards the larger ship that awaits him. She watches until the outline of him is swallowed by the dark skyline and for a moment she just watches the darkness as it envelopes everything along the horizon.

Jon Snow is gone, and somehow the obsidian emptiness taunts her in a way that makes her believe he had never truly been there at all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick thank you to everyone who has ever read my jonsa fics and left kudos and comments. I will be forever grateful for this wonderful part of the got fandom and I will never be fed up of writing or reading fic for this pairing. All of you have been so lovely and kind and honestly this fam has made me smile and laugh and swoon over fics and honestly it's cheered me up so many times. I love you all and even though the show is over jonsa is still canon in my head and even more so now that the ending was so ambiguous, and we still have the books so here's hoping!


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